well, just a simplistic statement presented as a universal truths...Never, ever use EQ. It destroys the overall sound fidelity.
...maid be true for you of cause, for whatever reasons: bad can, bad EQ implementation, not the right EQ Target, taste, Knowhow,...
the EQ bashing reflex was (may be) valid some years ago, but time is moving on.
if you are really serious about sound fidelity use EQ. it can compensate, what you HP adds to the original signal.
if you against EQ at all, well in this case you music catalog would be quite limited, as the chance that EQ was used during music production is quite high.